Today (May 31, 2023) is "World No Tobacco Day"! The tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced, killing more than 8 million people a year -tobacco kills up to half of its users!
Find out tips and steps to quit smoking: https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/
 |
| Weekly Wellness Update - World No Tobacco Day |
It's Youth Sports Safety Month.
Help your kids enjoy their favorite sports safely.
Explore some tips from the CDC to get you started: cdc.gov/headsup/youthsports
 |
| Franklin Health Department: Wellness Update - Youth Sports Safety Month |
It is important to acknowledge the instances globally in which the public health system worked as it was designed — outbreaks that were mitigated and prevented through community trust, rapid vaccine deployment and an effective public health workforce. https://t.co/JVADQ0hJhe
"While cutting-edge vaccine technology and genomic sequencing have received lots of attention in the COVID years, the interventions that helped prevent these six pandemics were steadfastly unglamorous: building the trust of communities in the local health system. Training local staff in how to report a suspected problem effectively. Making sure funds are available to dispense swiftly, to deploy contact tracers or vaccinate a village against rabies. Increasing lab capacity in areas far from the main urban centers. Priming everyone to move fast at the first sign of potential calamity."
 |
| Luke Dray/Getty Images |
"When the coronavirus vaccines first emerged, they were shown to have 94 to 95 percent efficacy in preventing symptomatic COVID-19.It was a situation where the message from public health officials was fairly simple – get the shot and help prevent the spread of the disease. Vaccine mandates, passports, and other measures were all deemed smart public health policy.But as variants of the disease began to appear and multiply, the vaccines couldn’t keep pace. Infections spread rapidly and Shira Doron, an infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center, said public health messaging couldn’t keep up."
 |
| Shira Doron, an infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center |
FM #880 = This is the Franklin Matters radio show, number 880 in the series.
This session of the radio show shares my conversation with Franklin's Health Director Cathleen Liberty November 8, 2022. We had our conversation via virtual conference bridge to adhere to the ‘social distancing’ requirements of this pandemic period.
The recording runs about 36 minutes, so let’s listen to my conversation with Cathleen. Audio file -> https://franklin-ma-matters.captivate.fm/episode/fm-877-franklin-ma-health-director-cathleen-liberty-11-08-22
--------------
Metacomet Health page -> https://www.metacometpha.org/
Health Dept page https://www.franklinma.gov/health-department
Health Dept - COVID reporting dashboard ->
https://www.franklinma.gov/health-department/webforms/covid-19-dashboard-portal
Board of Health page https://www.franklinma.gov/health-department
Sign up for Health alerts via Regroup -> https://franklintown.regroup.com/signup
The Topic podcast -> https://www.franklinma.gov/health-department/pages/topic-podcast-links
--------------
We are now producing this in collaboration with Franklin.TV and Franklin Public Radio (wfpr.fm) or 102.9 on the Franklin area radio dial.
This podcast is my public service effort for Franklin but we can't do it alone. We can always use your help.
How can you help?
If you can use the information that you find here, please tell your friends and neighbors
If you don't like something here, please let me know
Through this feedback loop we can continue to make improvements. I thank you for listening.
For additional information, please visit Franklinmatters.org/ or www.franklin.news
If you have questions or comments you can reach me directly at shersteve @ gmail dot com
The music for the intro and exit was provided by Michael Clark and the group "East of Shirley". The piece is titled "Ernesto, manana" c. Michael Clark & Tintype Tunes, 2008 and used with their permission.
I hope you enjoy!
------------------
You can also subscribe and listen to Franklin Matters audio on iTunes or your favorite podcast app; search in "podcasts" for "Franklin Matters"
"In 2011, when medical doctor and epidemiologist Mark Smolinski was working as a science advisor for the blockbuster film “Contagion,” the film ran a campaign that asked communities: “What are you gonna do to prepare for the next pandemic?”
A decade later, as the president of Ending Pandemics–a social venture that aims to predict, detect, and prevent disease outbreaks on our planet– Mark is still thinking about how we can rid the world of pandemic disease.
In this episode, Mark shares why we use big data to track disease, explains how our interconnected ecosystems shape public health, talks about why ending pandemics is an achievable goal, and argues that local communities are the ones who can lead the way in understanding–and preventing–the spread of illness."
| The TED Interview: "A future without pandemics? with Mark Smolinski" |
“All residents should be able to expect high-quality public health services regardless of where they live,” said Senate President Karen E. Spilka (D-Ashland). “This legislation puts into practice the lessons learned during the pandemic by increasing support for local boards of public health and ensuring that all communities in the Commonwealth are well prepared to respond to public health challenges. I want to thank Senator Comerford for repeatedly diving into the many technical aspects of public health in Massachusetts, bringing to light the importance of public health to our communities, and for crafting this legislation.”
“With the passage of this legislation, a person’s zip code will no longer determine the public health protections that they are afforded and local public health officials will have the resources they need to do their jobs,” said Senator Jo Comerford (D-Northampton), Senate Chair of Joint Committee on Covid-19 and Emergency Preparedness and Management and also of the Joint Committee on Public Health. “I am deeply grateful to Representatives Hannah Kane and Denise Garlick, Department of Public Health and Health and Human Services officials, the Massachusetts Public Health Association, and all who advocated for a better day for public health. That day has come.”
Currently, Massachusetts does not have a public health framework to guide local boards of health. SAPHE 2.0 directs the Department of Public Health (DPH), in consultation with municipalities and other stakeholders, to develop a set of standards for local public health systems in accordance with national standards and the recommendations of the Special Commission on Local and Regional Public Health. Standards will be set for communicable disease control, public health nursing services, food and water protection, chronic disease and injury prevention, environmental public health, maternal, child and family health, and access to clinical care.
The bill also directs DPH and the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to provide core public health educational and training opportunities and technical assistance to municipal and regional public health officials. This will help to prevent a situation from arising in which a board is unable to access health expertise from a credentialed member of the public health workforce.
To help ensure a sustainable state funding mechanism that addresses regional inequities and differing qualities of public health preparedness throughout the state, this legislation directs DPH to estimate annually, before the governor files a budget, the funds needed for local and regional health boards to meet the minimum standards set forth in the bill.
By enhancing and incentivizing cross-jurisdictional sharing, the bill will result in cost savings and more effective service delivery. The bill creates a uniform reporting system which includes metrics for inspections, code enforcement, communicable disease management, and local regulations, and will make this data available (excluding personally identifying information).
Having passed both Senate and the House of Representatives, this legislation will be laid before the Governor for his consideration.
Link to the legislation text can be found -> https://malegislature.gov/Bills/192/H5104
 |
| The Massachusetts State House JESSICA RINALDI/GLOBE STAFF |
"LEGISLATIVE NEGOTIATORS have come to an agreement on how to overhaul the governance of the state’s two Soldiers’ Homes in Holyoke and Chelsea.A bill released Wednesday evening lays out a new administrative structure for the homes, which elevates the Secretary of Veterans Services to a cabinet-level position while also creating a new independent Office of a Veterans Advocate. The bill represents a major bureaucratic restructuring with multiple levels of oversight and administration aimed at improving the management of the homes. "
"THE LEGISLATURE is poised to dramatically reshape Massachusetts’ local public health landscape, after the COVID-19 pandemic spotlighted just how inadequate it is.“I’ve been doing this work for almost 25 years and it’s just astounding to me the opportunity that we’re being presented with here, and the fact that the Legislature really understands the importance of delivering services fairly and equitably throughout the Commonwealth,” said Cheryl Sbarra, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Health Boards. “It’s something those of us involved in local public health have been dreaming for our whole careers.”
"WHILE LAWMAKERS scramble to put together a package of tax breaks in the final days of the legislative session, a little-known law from the mid-1980s is about to alter the Beacon Hill debate over tax relief.Record tax revenues in fiscal 2021 are expected to trigger the state’s tax cap for the first time in more than 30 years, setting the stage for Massachusetts taxpayers to claim sizable credits on their 2022 returns.The exact size of the credits is unclear because some of the information needed to calculate them is not yet available. But sources say the amount of money at stake could be significant. It’s also unclear whether the return of the money under the tax cap will affect ongoing discussions about a package of tax breaks and cash payments to residents totaling roughly $1 billion.The tax cap is one of those laws that has largely faded from memory. It was passed by voters in 1986, in the midst of the so-called Massachusetts Miracle. Put forward by Citizens for Limited Taxation and the Massachusetts High Technology Council, the ballot question sought to restrict how much tax revenue the state could take in, limiting the growth in revenues to no more than the growth in total wages and salaries."
 |
| A chart showing allowable tax revenues and net tax revenues since 1987. |
Franklin Health Dept. received 68 At-Home COVID-19 test kits. Call 508-570-8433 for a free kit & location pickup.
Limited Supply. 1 test per household member.
 |
| Town of Franklin - Health Department: COVID-19 Test Kits |
April is alcohol awareness month. 95,000 people die from excessive alcohol use in the U.S. each year.
Learn more at: www.cdc.gov/alcohol
 |
| Weekly Wellness Update - April is alcohol awareness month |
The weekly FPS COVID-19 dashboard is now available to view here: buff.ly/3pQh91e
 |
| weekly FPS COVID-19 dashboard |
 |
| From the MA DPH report |
 |
| Town of Franklin COVID-19 Health Dept |
"February's National Health Observance is Heart Disease. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in men and women. Learn how to reduce your risk at: https://www.heart.org/"
 |
| Health Department update: National Health Observance - heart disease |
"Why Public Health Faces a Crisis Across the U.S."
"State and local public health departments across the country have endured not only the public’s fury, but widespread staff defections, burnout, firings, unpredictable funding and a significant erosion in their authority to impose the health orders that were critical to America’s early response to the pandemic.While the coronavirus has killed more than 700,000 in the United States in nearly two years, a more invisible casualty has been the nation’s public health system. Already underfunded and neglected even before the pandemic, public health has been further undermined in ways that could resound for decades to come. A New York Times review of hundreds of health departments in all 50 states indicates that local public health across the country is less equipped to confront a pandemic now than it was at the beginning of 2020."
 |
| Yana Paskova for The New York Times |
"The United States owes its existence as a nation partly to an immunization mandate.In 1777, smallpox was a big enough problem for the bedraggled American army that George Washington thought it could jeopardize the Revolution. An outbreak had already led to one American defeat, at the Battle of Quebec. To prevent more, Washington ordered immunizations — done quietly, so the British would not hear how many Americans were sick — for all troops who had not yet had the virus.It worked. The number of smallpox cases plummeted, and Washington’s army survived a war of attrition against the world’s most powerful country. The immunization mandate, as Ron Chernow wrote in his 2010 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Washington, “was as important as any military measure Washington adopted during the war.”
Continue reading the article online. (Subscription maybe required)"For the most part, people are looking for answers, but the cards are stacked against them in this digital world. Every health care provider has had that one ardent unvaccinated conspiracy theorist who refused to believe that COVID is real despite showing them their trashed lungs on the CT scan, all while they’re on high-flow oxygen. Anecdote holding the power that it does, that patient runs the risk of coloring our perception of all unvaccinated patients in this same light. But, instead, my charge to health care providers is this: Take a meaningful pause and ask, “How did this person get to this point?” And understand that their condition is in part due to the challenges of the common person trying to understand complex medical science and being influenced by those with alternative agendas.That same night, I diagnosed a young woman, with three young kids, with lung cancer. She was a smoker, and she knew that smoking can cause cancer. How is her situation any different from an unvaccinated person with COVID? How many of us would stand at the bedside in her tragic hour and berate her for smoking? How many of us would, upon learning of someone’s death from cancer, say flatly, “Served her right”? If she said. “I didn’t think it would happen to me,” would anyone really say, “Whelp, I hope you survive” as we walked out the room? These are statements I have heard said to or about unvaccinated COVID patients in a recent week. Clearly, this does nothing to foster that trusted relationship between a physician and their patient.When I asked my unvaccinated COVID patient what was keeping him from getting the shot, he said he had read online that the vaccine gets into your DNA and he was afraid of what that would mean. So I sat down on his bed and spent a few minutes drawing a picture of a cell and nucleus, and explained in simple terms how mRNA works and why his DNA is not at risk. His next question was, “How soon can I get the vaccine?” He then called his kids and told them the same, and they asked where they could get the vaccine. While not successful in every encounter, I’m optimistic about the ripple effect that these little wins may have. And damn it if we don’t need a win now and again. In our most fundamental charge, “doctor” means “teacher.” This is the year where we understand. This is the year where we teach."
 |
| Anti-vaccination protesters near Los Angeles City Hall on Aug. 14. Earlier that week, the City Council voted to require proof of vaccination to enter many public indoor spaces in the city. DAVID MCNEW/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES |
|
 |
| school vaccination requirements |
"Local public health officials were excited when the Baker administration recently announced a modest grant program to help beleaguered towns and cities be better prepared for the next pandemic. For the first time in decades, they said, the state was investing new money on the front lines of disease prevention.But then came Governor Charlie Baker’s announcement on Thursday that not a single dollar out of $2.8 billion in federal pandemic relief funding he plans to allocate would go toward public health programs. Instead, he said, the money would be used to ease the state’s housing crunch and other priorities.Now, some of the same leaders who were praising the administration days ago are lamenting what they say is Baker’s shortsightedness. They believe the governor is missing a historic opportunity to make a dramatic new investment in the state’s tattered public health system."
